For 2012, Gartner now sees semi revenues of $298 million, down 3% from last year; that's down from a previous projection that revenues would be up 0.6% to $309 billion.
"The looming fiscal cliff, ongoing European debt crisis, slower emerging market growth and regional tensions have all played a part in reduced growth projections for semiconductor revenue in both 2012 and 2013," Peter Middleton, principal analyst at Gartner, said in a statement. "Inventory levels were already high at the start of the second half of 2012, and as PC demand rolled off, supply simply overshot demand."
Gartner notes that the chip market was hurt by weak DRAM pricing in 2012; they do not expect a rebound until the 2013 second half, "when lower supply growth is expected to pull the market into a period of undersupply."
For 2014, Gartner projects 15.3% growth in the memory market and overall industry growth of 9.9%, to $342 billion.
The research firm is projecting a 2.5% drop in PC production for 2012, adding that "total PC production is expected to remain weak" in 2013. Gartner's view is that "the challenging economic environment has contributed to PC life cycle extension, in addition to users extending the life of their PCs as they adopt tablets."
Gartner also expects overall mobile phone production growth to soften both this year and next year "as the tough economy reduces short-term demand for phones." But the research firm adds that "adoption of Android-based entry-level smartphones in emerging regions continues to accelerate and will be a key growth driver." Gartner sees smartphone unit of 33% next year, with tablets up 38.5%.
